An exhibit at the Princeton University Art Museum explores the campus’ gothic revival architecture
By Anthony Stoeckert
WALKING around the Princeton University campus can feel as if you’re walking around buildings that have existed since time began. But the truth is that many of the structures creating that feel are only about 100 years old.
And that’s not a coincidence. The buildings were part of the gothic revival movement in American architecture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The people behind the university (which was still known as The College of New Jersey when the movement started) were seeking to modernize the campus and in doing so, looked to the past, specifically the architecture of Cambridge and Oxford.
”I think people who were responsible for creating those buildings — the architects who designed them and the trustees and the administration — the university that commissioned them and paid for them, really intended for them to invoke those feelings, that you were surrounded by ancient architecture,” says Johanna G. Seasonwein, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow for Academic Programs at the Princeton University Art Museum.
Ms. Seasonwein is the organizer of “Princeton and the Gothic Revival: 1870-1930,” which is on view at the Princeton University Art Museum through June 24. The exhibit features 40 works, many of which have never before been exhibited. The works are from the museum’s resources, the Princeton Firestone Library, the University archives and other sources to create an exhibit that examines the university’s role in the Gothic Revival movement.
The exhibit is divided into four sections: “The American Gothic Revival Before 1870” explores the Gothic Revival movement, which began in England in the mid-18th century and started to take root in the United States100 years later. “The Gothic Revival in the Gilded Age” examines how styles from the Middle Ages influenced the 1870s and ‘880s when large donations were made to Princeton for the construction of lavish buildings.
”The Middle Ages and the Modern University” takes a look at how new disciplines such as art history led to medieval-style buildings on campus, and “The Collegiate Gothic Campus” examines the connections between English Collegiate Gothic styles and the American university.”
According to Ms. Seasonwein the Gothic Revival movement is the result of the influence of people like Andrew Flemming West, the first dean of Princeton’s Graduate College, and Woodrow Wilson, president of the University in the early 20th century, and Moses Taylor Pyne, the influential trustee and benefactor to the school.
”They all loved those buildings,” Ms. Seasonwein says. “They all visited Oxford and Cambridge and loved those buildings and specifically loved the idea that Princeton was going to be the American successor of those traditions. So what better way to communicate to students that they were the inheritors of these traditions than to give them buildings to live and work and sleep in that invoke the aesthetics of those buildings.”
Those aesthetics in large part helped define the University. One of the pieces on view is “Princeton College, Princeton, N.J., 1875,” alithograph by Thomas Hunter. It’s an aerial view of the campus, and wall text explains that the image shows how rural Princeton was then, and how much of the University campus hasn’t changed.
There are also architectural drawings of Marquand Chapel by Richard Morris Hunt. The chapel was finished in 1882 and was, wall text explains, a highlight of the campus, until it burned down in 1820. Hunt was the first American architect to train at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris, which obviously influenced his work. On view are two of the three final drawings before construction started. There is also the head of a statue of James McCosh, the university’s president when Marquand was built. The statue piece is all that remains from Marquand. A copy of the statue was commissioned by the class of 1920 for its 50th anniversary, and that statue is on view in University Chapel.
Another interesting theme of the exhibit is that while this architecture is inspired by European traditions, it is distinctly American. As an example, Ms. Seasonwein notes the University Chapel, which she says looks as if it might fit in an English or French town.
Parts of the chapel refer to English traditions, and other parts refer to French ones, and that’s what makes it original.
”You would never find a building in Europe that did it quite that way because European architects are generally following the traditions of their own regions or cities or countries,” Ms. Seasonwein says. “So I think American architects and their patrons were completely free from those traditions and those restrictions and they felt free to combine or sort of cherry pick — ‘I like this detail from that building, I like this detail from another building’ — and put them together in a new way.”
That was important to Ralph Adams Cram architect of chapel.
”He didn’t want his buildings to be copies, he didn’t want it to be a miniature Notre Dame cathedral,” Ms. Seasonwein says. “He wanted it to be something new and fresh because he felt the best way to do gothic revival was to make it seem like it was continuing what had been cut off by the Renaissance.”
He wanted it to appear as if had grown organically out of architecture in the 15th century and the early 16h century.
”I think only an American could really do that and not feel beholden to the traditions of their country.”
Complementing the exhibit is a mobile website that visitors can access from smartphones. The website features a multimedia tour of the campus, highlighting nine sites on campus in conjunction with the exhibit.
Princeton and the Gothic Revival is on view at Princeton University Art Museum on the campus of Princeton University through June 24. Hours: Tues.-Wed., Fri.-Sat. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thurs. 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sun. 1-5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 609-258-3788 or go to www.artmuseum.princeton.edu